Maga menace As Democrats rejoice, Trump is already plotting his revenge

After the joy, the trepidation.

- Jonathan Freedland

Or at least the preparation. Democrats, along with many others around the world, cheered last week's wins in a clutch of off-year elections that saw Donald Trump's Republicans defeated. But now they need to brace themselves for the reaction.

Because Trump does not like losing. And he will do all he can to ensure it does not happen again - by means fair and, often, foul. Indeed, that effort is already under way.

The most dramatic win was Zohran Mamdani's history-making victory in America's most populous city, New York. Voters in California backed Democrats on an apparently technical measure that could prove hugely significant. Democrats won the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia by double-digit margins.

All this has displeased Trump, but it is the election of Mamdani in Trump's home city that brought the swiftest response. The forces of Maga have wasted no time in making the man Trump calls a "100% communist lunatic" the face of the Democratic party.